This ridiculous Steve Cohen story

4/12/13 1:21 PM EDT

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen says he intentionally wrote and then deleted a tweet in which he called the singer Cyndi Lauper "hot," after her performance at a soul music event hosted by the White House.

Between gun control, immigration, North Korea, and this horrifying Gosnell case, I'm not sure this is deserving of much attention, but we should note that just because he says it was intentional doesn't mean it was. Some folks seem to be forgetting that.

Cohen spoke to The Daily Beast's Howie Kurtz today before addressing reporters and said the tweet "was all a ruse" to fool the media. “I knew by deleting it they would run it, it would give it news, give it life. That was the hook," he said. Kurtz then published the unquestioning headline: "Congressman Pretended to Be 'Hot' for Cyndi Lauper."

Did he? My colleague Kate Nocera was at Cohen's press conference and shared some of the congressman's wonderful explanations on Twitter, including this gem: "This story is not about me, it's about the press." Indeed.